Very large quantities of water are required to support oil and gas well drilling operations. Because the drilling sites are often located in remote and dry areas, water must be transported to the drilling sites at significant expense. The water is typically brought to a location that is near or central to a number of drilling sites using several pump trucks, and then stored in man-made ponds often referred to as drill pits. Pump trucks are then used to pump water from the drill pit and to transport the water to a particular drill site as needed to support the drilling operation. To minimize expense, the water is typically recovered during the drilling operation and returned by the pump truck back to the drill pit for future use at that or other drilling sites. The water from one drill pit may even be moved to another drill pit when, for example, operations are winding down at one location but are ramping up at another.
Drilling operations are very dirty, and the recovered water is typically contaminated with chemical byproducts and hydrocarbons associated with the drilling process. Drill pits therefore have recently fallen under severe scrutiny by various environmental regulatory agencies. A number of precautionary measures must be taken, to comply with environmental regulations established by those agencies, to ensure that the recycled water does not contaminate the surrounding ecosystem or otherwise harm wildlife.
One requirement is that the drill pits be lined to prevent the contaminated water from seeping into the ground and eventually contaminating the groundwater. Another requirement is that the drill pits be covered with netting to prevent wildlife from attempting to access the water either for drinking, bathing, and in the case of waterfowl, landing.
Typically, a pump truck is dispatched to either deliver water to a drill pit or to draw water therefrom. The operator backs the truck up to the drill pit, pulls out a line (usually a hose or some form of flexible tubing) that is in communication with the tank of the pump truck through a pump, and the operator casts the free end of the line into the drill pit. This process is often made more difficult in that the line must be first disposed through the protective netting. This makes access to the water more difficult and can cause damage to the netting.
The end of the line also tends to be dragged across the bottom of the pond, especially during withdrawal of the line by the operator. This can cause further damage to the netting, and to the protective liner at the bottom of the pit. As the line is removed from the pit and refracted for transport, it is dragged across the ground and water remaining in and on the line can contaminate the ground surrounding the pit. Sometimes the operator forgets that the line is still in the drill pit and starts to drive off without first removing the line, causing the end of the line to drag along the pit liner, as well as to spill water remaining in the line onto the ground as it emerges from the pond or drill pit.
Lines are sometimes left at the drill pit on a semi-permanent basis, one end disposed through the netting and into the drill pit, the other end left lying on the ground to which the pump truck lines can be coupled. This eliminates having operators constantly deploying and withdrawing their pump lines into and out of the drill pits.
Notwithstanding, an operator does not always position the truck with enough slack, because it is hard to tell where the end of the line is and how much slack is available in that line from inside the truck. Thus, the operator is sometimes tempted to pull on the line disposed in the drill pit to create the necessary slack to facilitate the coupling of the pump truck line to the end left on the ground. Operators also can and still do forget to decouple their truck's pump line from the line disposed in the pit and start to pull away. The end of the line in the pit can be dragged across the pond liner, potentially causing damage to the pit liner and therefore leaks of the contaminated water.
Finally, there is still a significant likelihood that spillage of contaminated water, remaining in the hoses after the pumping process is complete, will occur when the operator connects or disconnects the pump truck line from the line disposed in the pond or drill pit. This can and does lead to environmental contamination of the area around the pond or drill pit in violation of environmental regulations.